3 Japanese Proverbs
Sat, 04/28/2018 - 23:15
3 Japanese Proverbs
J
apan is always coming up with new expressions such as 壁ドン (kabedon) and 倍返しだ (baegaeshi da). There are always new expressions from TV, comedians, songs, and pop memes. But the oldies are goodies. Here are three proverbs everyone knows:
花より団子 (hana yori dango)
Dango are delicious, but they generally don't look like much. It's usually just a sweet stick of a mochi-like substance you can find at any fair or festival. Flowers look really pretty and nice, but have no utility other than appearance. So this expression is saying it prefers dango over flowers, which is an expression of substance over form.
| 花 | より | 団子 |
|---|---|---|
| hana | yori | dango |
| flowers | is less preferred to | Japanese dumpling |
Popular TV show from 2005. One of our top drama shows.
You might know this saying from the popular Japanese TV series. In this series, the main female lead meets these ridiculous rich boys. But she doesn't care about their money. They might look cool and have all this money, but they're still really just immature high school boys.
類は友を呼ぶ (rui wa tomo o yobu)
People hang out out with people similar to them.
| 類 | は | 友 | を | 呼ぶ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| rui | wa | tomo | o | yobu |
| class/genus | topic marker | friend | object marker | to call |
This expression is generally translated as birds of a feather flock together. In this case, it literally means those of the same class are friends and call for each other. This saying is also the name for this adult animation.
七転び八起き (nanakorobi yaoki)
| 七 | 転び | 八起き |
|---|---|---|
| nana | korobi | yaoki |
| seven | fall down | 8 get up |